Sometimes, when you think you’re winning …

Love this – Farmer Fortissimo #Lincs

Life On The Edge (of the Fens)

Then one day Farmer Fortissimo came to visit. Larger than life and at least four times louder, and smelling quite strongly of cows.  Every stitch on his tight shirt straining (who was I to talk?) and every button bursting (ditto) as he tried very, very hard to find out what our Dream Home had cost us.  In theory, he was there to see if we would let him graze our cows in his paddock.  In practice, he was clearly to desperate to find out how much we had paid for the place.  Understandably suspicious of Londoners and our motives, he was also out to dig and rile while quaffing as many beers as I ill-advisedly provided, desperate as I was to get it right and not seem stand-offish.  I resolutely refused to walk into any of his traps (Round One to me), and as we sat in the then-kitchen and…

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I am The Stig — Life On The Edge (of the Fens)

Or ‘Early Promise Unfulfilled’ So picture the scene. Me, with the seat of the huge estate car necessarily pushed right back, struggling to reach the pedals, hurtling down the A1 at speeds that would have made my eyes water were they not already doing so, actually hoping to see the police in my rear view […]

via I am The Stig — Life On The Edge (of the Fens)

The quiet before the storm — Life On The Edge (of the Fens)

Amazement that we’d done it, combined with heat and hugeness meant that I, at any rate, did very little to help in those early days. It became a bit of a game to those I used to think loved me to see just how long it would take me to get up the front stairs, […]

via The quiet before the storm — Life On The Edge (of the Fens)

Grantham Connecting

Grantham Business Expo 2017

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Just wanted to say what a great first for Grantham; everyone coming together, under one roof at Arena UK (on the other side of the A1 from Downtown)

Businesses ranged from retail (including the aforementioned Oldrids/Downtown) to B2Bs and local charities.

We saw wonderful demonstrations from Sue at Flowers from Holland, bubbles from Pristine Dry Cleaners and Grantham apples from Reflect Recruitment.

The catering from the Arena was excellent – thank you Teresa – and the speakers informative and inspirational.

A big round of applause for the amazing Emma Sheardown, a motivational speaker and para dressage rider and Noreen Read, a business speaker and expert on business funding, as our guest speakers for the evening.

But I think the biggest takeaway was the fun atmosphere, the hustle and bustle and a real buzz of excitement! It really does feel like Grantham means business now.

Grantham is a changin’ 

Life changes; with or without you

Source: Life changes; with or without you

As mid-life crises go …. — Life On The Edge

… this was a doozie. After 14 years of marriage Eeyore turned 40 and decided life didn’t amount to a hill of beans. I knew I needn’t worry: we’d talked about The Move for years without actually doing it, so I decided to humour the dear boy. He said he resented my patronising tone and that […]

via As mid-life crises go …. — Life On The Edge

Writing on Social Media

When launching a social media campaign, voice and tone are really important. To know your voice, you first need to know your audience. This means identifying – and understanding – your target market. That means listing, segmenting and determining who will benefit from your product or service.

Who is your market demographically; age, gender, relationship status, income, occupation?

You also need to be able to describe your market psychographically; emotions & attitudes

At the end of the day, it is your target reader that will determine what and how you write and everything you write should be with that reader in mind.

Why you should be using Social Media

Social Media is used not only to drive sales and revenue but is also used for recruiting staff, disaster recovery in crisis management, launching a product or event and for consumer research. However one of the biggest uses in my mind, is to drive people to your information.

Linkbacks from social sites are really authoritative and send valuable signals to search engines. Social Media matters more that ever when it comes to optimising your information.

Even the White House uses Twitter! When a follower complained that their tweets were boring, they tweeted an apology for the dryness of fiscal policy alongside a link to a Rick Astley video to cheer everyone up!

My last point being, and it was undoubtedly the first reason why social media was used, is that, even as a business, you should have fun 🙂

L&P Social Media launch at the Newark Business Club this Friday

Paul from PR Wilson Media and I are sponsoring & presenting at the Newark Business Club this week; it’ll mean a really early start to get organised by 7am!

Nonetheless it will be exciting to officially launch our brand new, fully comprehensive, locally based social media services partnership – L&P Social Media. Together we really can offer a complete, end-to-end and fully customizable range of services.

So look forward to seeing you at The Everyday Champions Centre on the 4th & sharing our absolute passion for making social media work for you and your business. There will be an exclusive offer available to those attending 🙂

Turn customers into brand advocates

Turn customers into brand advocates

Here’s something that caught my eye. Forbes recently published an article about turning loyal customers into ‘brand advocates’. Based on what we do at The Best of Grantham and The Best of Newark I found this really interesting. Here are some of the top tips:
• Find your advocates
Ask – Are you likely to recommend on a scale of 0-10? You can ask this question across the social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
• Make it easy for your fans to recommend you
Give them the online tools to review you. Great testimonials combat negative reviews and improve SEO. Positive recommendations boost awareness and brand reputation
• Share the love and leverage the content
Once you have the reviews don’t just sit on them; amplify them across social media channels. Pop up testmonials at each step of the consumers purchase path. Build up a profile of your advocates so you can readily engage with them
• Keep it authentic
Your reviews must be genuine. If the review is filled with keywords or the writer is incentivised then it is unlikely to engage prospects. Don’t pimp out your customers!